Rouse was an honor student taking six courses during Loyola's championship season. In an interview a few weeks before the Ramblers' 60-58 title-game victory over Cincinnati, Rouse said: "I study every weeknight and one night on the weekend. For a long time I jumped rope until it got on my nerves. Then, almost at once, I saw my coordination improve."

W. Victor Rouse applied this same work ethic in his postcollegiate career as president of management consulting industrial relations firms that stressed development of programs for minority employees.

Rouse earned a bachelor's degree, three master's degrees and one doctorate. At 28, he founded and ran his own company. He wrote articles on hiring and motivating socially and economically disadvantaged workers.

Yet nothing Rouse did after he graduated from Loyola in 1964 matched the attention he received as the 6-foot-7-inch junior forward who made what the Tribune called "The Shot Heard 'Round the Basketball World" on March 23, 1963, in Louisville's Freedom Hall.

Rouse rebounded a missed shot by Les Hunter and made the basket that ended Cincinnati's two-year run as NCAA champion and sent students out of dorms and bars to snake-dance onto Sheridan Road in Chicago.

"I knew I was going to get the ball, and I took my time once I was in the air," Rouse said after the game. "I never thought we'd lose. We came too far to lose it."

Rouse's former teammates talked of his work ethic when they learned of his death.

"Vic was more focused that anyone I ever met," said Hunter, Rouse's high school teammate for two years at Pearl High in Nashville. "He had drive and determination. He absolutely refused to lose, whether in athletics or in the business world. But nothing was more important to him than his family."

"It was really fitting that Vic hit the winning shot," said Jerry Harkness, a two-time All-American who was the Ramblers' star. "He worked so hard on the court and in the classroom. He did our dirty work and was our unsung hero."

Loyola rallied from 15 points behind with 10 minutes to play in regulation to force overtime. The Tribune ranked this comeback win No. 7 on its 1998 list of the 150 Most Memorable Moments in Chicago Sports.

All five of coach George Ireland's starters played all 45 minutes in the title game. They were Ron Miller and Harkness from New York City, Hunter from Nashville, Rouse from Edwardsville, and Jack Egan, the lone Chicagoan.

Rouse, one of eight Ramblers whose uniform number was retired, ranks No. 20 in career scoring and No. 4 in rebounding at Loyola. He was chosen in the seventh round of the 1964 NBA draft by Cincinnati, but he opted for more schooling, and then business.

Rouse is survived by his wife, Brenda, a son, Victor, and a daughter, Deborah. A memorial service will be held Friday at Zion Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. Burial will be in East St. Louis.